by Adam Silvera
Even though I can’t feel Emil’s shock, I know we’re the only two people in the room feeling it.
Luna is Sera’s mother—and my grandmother.
Forty-Four
History
BRIGHTON
Emil and Maribelle are glowing like rays of sun. They’re sweating within their gold and gray and dark yellow flames and while words occasionally slip out, I have no idea what’s actually happening. All I know is they must have successfully retrocycled.
I can’t believe this. Emil is meeting my hero, his past life, while Maribelle is with her biological mother. How does it work? Have they become them? Do they have any control? No one thought they would, but we didn’t know any of this was possible before we came along. The rules for a phoenix don’t have to be the same rules for specters with phoenix powers.
Thirty minutes in, Prudencia asks, “What if they’re stuck?”
“It hasn’t even been an hour,” Tala says. “Phoenixes don’t go in and out.”
Wyatt nods. “The only gray sun on record for retrocycling returned from hibernation after two days.”
“I’m not sitting here for two days,” I say.
“Then let’s hope Emil and Maribelle can find their way back sooner,” Wyatt says.
“By trusting their instincts?”
“It’s gotten them this far.”
But how far is that? Truly. They’re limited by what they could do, even someone as special as Maribelle, a celestial-specter hybrid. I’m the Infinity Savior, and the reason I must not be able to retrocycle is because I don’t have all the powers my Reaper’s Blood has promised me. Even if the ghost powers don’t have much to do with my phoenix ones, everything is packaged together within me and is sure to affect each other, just like how Maribelle couldn’t fully fly until she activated her fire too.
I might be left out now, but once I have all my powers, I’ll make their retrocycling and everything else they can do look like child’s play.
Count on it.
An hour passes, then another, and I spend the next three replying to my YouTube comments and answering a few questions on Instagram, but by the eighth hour of waiting around, I’m beginning to wonder if my brother and Maribelle will find their way back to our time.
Forty-Five
Sera Córdova
MARIBELLE
I’m the granddaughter of the woman who has taken everything from me.
This is some cursed darkness I’ve been born into. I’ve always loved being a celestial, but I’ve never wanted these powers less than I do right now. I crave family drama more along the lines of my mother not speaking to my grandmother because she doesn’t approve of my father or arguments over how best to raise me. Instead there have been hidden pregnancies, secret parents, and a villainous grandmother like some awful fairy tale.
I share blood with the most feared gang leader who is behind the deaths of Mama, Papa, Sera, Bautista, and Atlas. I want to rage-cry, but Luna’s made sure there’s no one to hold me anymore.
Emil tries approaching me, but I hold out my hand. I don’t want his comfort.
“Are Konrad and Finola back?” Sera asks.
“I don’t think so,” Bautista says. “Iris’s appointment with the savant should be happening now. Do you think they’re okay?”
“I didn’t see them getting harmed in my vision,” Sera says.
“What did you see? How does it happen?”
“What does it matter how it happens?! We’re dying, Bautista. The best thing we can do right now is make sure our daughter and our friends don’t die with us!” Sera is shaking as she switches off the cauldron’s fire. “I didn’t even get to finish the potion for Aurora, and I’ll never get to see Maribelle speak or watch her walk. It’s happening too soon, far too soon. I hate these visions that only show me pain and death but never life.”
The baby is crying, but Bautista tries shushing Sera to calm her down instead. He holds her face to his chest and rubs her back. Neither of them are particularly settled by this.
What Sera says about the visions only showing pain and death syncs up with how my psychic sense has only ever warned me of danger. I don’t know where this power comes from. An ancestor of Luna’s? My grandfather? Whoever that is. As much as Sera believes she wants to see my future as if I have some beautiful life, she would only see how the world has gotten worse and taken me down with it.
“We have to bring Maribelle to Aurora,” Sera says.
“No, come on. I’m getting you out of here. We’ll prove your vision wrong,” Bautista says.
“This warning is written in the stars, and even we’re not powerful enough to change the fates. Grab the journal. There’s still time to set up the Walkers for success against the Blood Casters.”
As Sera leaves the room and rushes down the hallway, I’m dragged with her, like she’s the earth and I’m a moon pulled into her orbit. Bautista catches up, clutching the journal. Emil is side by side with me.
“Are you okay?” Emil asks.
I’m surprised I can hear him. I ignore him like I can’t.
Sera and Bautista are rushing through the hall, dreading their deaths, but not saying anything to each other. Had Mama and Papa known they were about to die, they would’ve used every last minute to express their love for one another. But I was grown when Mama and Papa died. Here I’m a baby who needs my biological parents to pass me on so I can become who I am.
I can’t believe I’m going to get to see Mama and Papa.
Sera stops in her tracks, then shoves Bautista to the side as she steps back, a stream of acid sailing past where they stood. We all turn and a man in a gray jumpsuit and venom-green eyes gives Sera and Bautista a creepy-ass wave with his scaled hand. Bautista wastes no time blasting golden fire his way, but the basilisk specter moves as smoothly as Stanton has.
“Take her and go!” Bautista says.
He tosses the journal to Sera before launching another attack, unaware if he’ll ever see her again. Sera drops the journal, and as she scoops it up and runs away, an index card is left behind. Emil pointlessly shouts her name as he pointlessly tries to pick it up.
“Those are the ingredients!” Emil says.
“Memorize them!” I shout as Sera pulls me with her down the hall.
This is the moment in history that explains why two more decades of specters were allowed to grow, causing more strife between those with powers and those without. A warrior’s carelessness sparked by a mother’s determination to protect her daughter. All the deaths, from Mama and Papa to Finola to Konrad to Atlas—would they still be alive if this power-binding potion had made its way into the world? Would Luna have given up the fight if her efforts were so easily countered?
It’s like I’ve been thinking all along—I’m touched by Death.
I just didn’t realize it’s been this way since the beginning.
Sera has nearly reached the end of the hallway when I see my parents pop out of one of the rooms, wands at the ready. I’m stunned and it’s like I’ve forgotten how to breathe as I marvel at them. I never thought it would be possible to see my parents again, let alone at a time where they’re a couple years older than I am. Mama is so beautiful; I wish I resembled her more. Her dark hair isn’t long like I’ve known it, but cut to her shoulders with a golden wreath wrapped around her head that brings out the green flecks in her brown eyes. Papa is as handsome as all the photos made him out to be, and it’s not surprising to me that he was the player in the group. His thick eyebrows are one day away from a unibrow, and I almost want to laugh given how serious Papa got about waxing later in his life. They’re both wearing dated power-proof vests, our Spell Walker insignia sprayed on in silver graffiti.
“Blood Casters have broken in,” Sera says.
“Look out the window; we’re surrounded by acolytes,” Mama says.
This surprises Sera, her fear building. “I don’t have a lot of time, but Bautista and I need you both to take care of Maribelle.”
“We’re staying and fighting,” Papa says.
“No, you have to go! I had a vision, and I need my daughter out of here!”
Mama holds Papa’s wrist, which I’ve always seen her do to get him to listen. “We’ll fly Maribelle somewhere safe. Anywhere in particular we should meet you?”
Sera is rocking baby Maribelle back and forth while brushing the full head of hair I was born with. She tearfully looks up at Mama and Papa and even though I can’t sense their emotions I trust they know what’s coming as clear as a vision. “This is my and Bautista’s last fight. I’ve seen our corpses in the very near future, and the only way you can help us is by taking care of our daughter.”
Papa is shaking his head. “Sera, you’re not going anywhere. Maybe you’re reading the vision wrong. Don’t play into it.”
Mama is crying, and whenever she cried in life, it was always hard for me to watch. This time I won’t turn away. “I know it’s hard, Lestor, but her visions have never been wrong. The last time we didn’t trust her power, it only broke our hearts even more. . . .” She places one hand on her stomach and rubs Papa’s arm, soothing him as he fights back his own tears.
I’m confused until I realize that Mama must’ve had a miscarriage—a loss that Sera would’ve foreseen. I don’t know how painful that must’ve been for them, and if they ever planned on telling me, but I want to hug Mama and Papa so much.
The desperation and devastation is building within Sera. “I wish more than anything to have seen our girls grow up together. . . . I’m heartbroken I won’t even get to see my little sunflower blossom. But you two can. I need you to raise Maribelle as your own. Do not let anyone, especially the Blood Casters, know that she’s mine. I can’t have my mother using her the way she’s used me my entire life.”
Mama nods immediately, so ready to welcome me as her daughter, and Papa is still in shock. “We’ll love her as we already have,” she says. “It will never feel like a charade, but what do we do if her powers take after Bautista? There is no fire in our bloodlines.”
“Then bind them,” Sera says as she hands Papa the journal. “Bautista tested my potion on Price, and it worked. When she’s older and safe, you decide what she knows or doesn’t. But her life is more important to me than the truth. Understood?”
“Yes,” Mama says.
“Lestor?”
“You and Bautista saved our lives. We’ll do anything for you,” Papa says.
Sera stares into her daughter’s eyes. “Be strong and be loved, Maribelle Córdova de León. Your father and I have constellations of love for you.” She kisses baby Maribelle’s forehead and squeezes her against her chest before passing her over to Mama.
There’s something about this handoff that makes me feel like I’m watching myself being born.
“Be well,” Sera whispers to everyone.
Papa opens the window and he’s the first to fly out. Mama makes sure the blanket is secured around the baby before pausing to give Sera one last look. Then Mama smoothly flies outside, and Sera and I watch them soaring into the distance.
This is the first time my family took to the skies together. And the last time my birth mother ever saw me.
Forty-Six
Bautista De León
EMIL
In every great time-travel story, the person returning to the past brings spoilers with them.
Even though I know Luna is ultimately the one who kills Bautista, I’m still not sure how this battle is going to play out between the original Spell Walker and this basilisk Blood Caster. I so badly wish I could take over so Bautista can catch up with Sera and Maribelle and say his goodbyes, but I’m powerless in this space.
Green acid flies toward Bautista and he shoulder rolls into a room with shelves of colorful gem-grenades. He’s calculating something as he ducks behind one of the dozen barrels in here. I almost hide with him, but the Blood Caster can’t see me when he comes in.
“Who was that precious baby?” he asks.
Back at Gleam Care, when Stanton attacked, he was able to track us quickly. I don’t know if this Blood Caster has the same abilities, but he’s moving fast in the direction of Bautista. I can sense that Bautista is nervous. I don’t know if it’s because he’s in a room of explosives or because an adversary might figure out that Maribelle is his daughter.
The Blood Caster stops in his tracks, sniffing the air, and Bautista hops from behind the barrel and jumps into this unbelievable swing kick that connects with his jaw; it’s hard to picture myself doing that, and I can actually fly, unlike Bautista. They trade blows, missing each other every time until the Blood Caster is building acid in his mouth and Bautista chops him in the throat and takes him down with an ankle sweep.
Bautista runs to the doorway. “I’m not going down alone,” he says as he throws a golden fire-orb into the wall of gem-grenades. He charges down the same hall where Sera and Maribelle ran off, so focused that he doesn’t see the index card with the potion ingredients on the floor. In moments, the loudest explosion I’ve ever heard echoes through my ears as fire and electricity blow apart the room. An alarm rings through the halls. Bautista continues running away like he’s a track star escaping an apocalypse, never once looking back at the electrifying, fiery chaos raging behind him.
Once he’s in the clear, he stops to catch his breath. He doesn’t feel any remorse for killing the Blood Caster, or destroying the property. I could’ve never protected my life as quickly as he protected his. But if I had to take care of Brighton? Maybe. I hope I never have to find out. I repeat the ingredients over and over to make sure I no longer have to be a soldier.
The former Blood Caster, Price, comes running down the hall. “What’s happening? Are we under attack?”
“No, I thought blowing up the place could be festive,” Bautista says.
“You enjoy being a dick; I’m going to get out of here—” Price stops talking as a spear with green flames pierces him from behind and he drops dead as quick as a blink.
We turn to find a crew of reinforcements—two Blood Casters and a group of acolytes, guessing from the look of them. The man who threw the spear with phoenix fire has a black ponytail and huge muscles. He might not have his spear anymore, but he could probably crush someone with his burnt hands. There’s a woman with three eyes, one of them shut, and four arms with fingers that won’t stop twitching; hydra-blooded for sure. These must be some of the earliest Blood Casters, if not the first. The acolytes are dressed in gray turtlenecks and black pants, much different from the jumpsuits they wear today.
Bautista holds up two fiery fists and tries to assert as much confidence as possible; they don’t know yet that they’ll be successful in killing him.
“I killed your pet snake,” he says. “Who’s next?”
“Perhaps me,” a woman’s voice calls, and the acolytes part so Luna can make her way to the front. She must be in her late forties, early fifties here, with her dark hair beginning to gray. She moves and breathes easily. If Luna is as dangerous as she is in my time, I can only imagine what action she saw in her full health. She smiles at Price on the floor. “The traitor is dead. Marvelous.”
“All he wanted was a better life,” Bautista says.
“Don’t we all?” Luna muses. “Where’s Sera?”
“Long gone,” Bautista lies.
“She won’t get very far.”
“Neither will you,” Bautista says.
He thrusts his fists forward repeatedly like he’s in front of a punching bag; it’s a technique I’d be smart to try out as long as I have these powers. Seven fire-orbs fly toward Luna and the phoenix Caster defends Luna with a shield of green fire. The hydra Caster runs along the wall, and as Bautista focuses on trying to burn her, he leaves himself vulnerable to fire-darts to the chest and is blasted backward.
I scream as the fire burns me too. I don’t go flying like Bautista, but I still clutch my chest wishing I could do something more than stand here and take it. I d
idn’t know I would experience Bautista’s pain like this. . . .
The Blood Casters pin him down.
Luna unsheathes the infinity-ender dagger from her belt. “Shame that Sera isn’t around to see this. Though perhaps she already has. . . .” She hovers over him and presses her hand against her heart. “I promise you, my dear Bautista, that if you dare appear in another life to oppose me, I will kill you over and over until you learn your lesson. Be forewarned that I plan on being around for a very long time.”
I try to break my hold on my past life so I don’t have to feel this pain, but Luna is swift and stabs him in the stomach. Bautista and I scream, echoing over each other. His blood rises around the dagger and flows down his sides. His healing power tries to activate, but the same pain from when Ness and Luna stabbed me ignites, over and over, and it’s unbearable. Bautista fights for air, and I feel dizzy, struggling to breathe myself. He knows he’s going to die, but I’m freaking out that maybe I might die too. We have no clue if the phoenixes who’ve retrocycled were impacted by the deaths in their bloodlines, and I wish I’d learned more about how many of those hibernating phoenixes actually woke up, and if any of them fell over dead because they didn’t return to their own life in time.
“BAUTISTA!”
Sera runs over with present-day Maribelle at her side. She slides to her knees, so bold that she doesn’t pay any mind to the Blood Casters crowding Bautista. She shoves away Luna, who laughs. Maribelle suddenly starts holding her stomach and screams; can she feel his pain too, even if she transported to Sera? I can’t focus as Sera slowly pulls out the infinity-ender from Bautista’s stomach. Everything is too agonizing to notice a difference. It’s so odd to feel all his pain and not see my own blood running down me.
“We won,” Sera says with tears flooding down her flushed cheeks. “We won. Not them! I will see you in the beyond, my sunray.”
